


mauritius

by renlyne



Series: apparently I write gryles drabbles now [6]
Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: (of a sort), Angst, Author Makes Everything Sad, Canon Compliant, Self-Reflection, We're All Shocked
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 15:19:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13274217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renlyne/pseuds/renlyne
Summary: 04 January 2018It would be easier, Harry thought, if he could just stop watching.





	mauritius

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jiksa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jiksa/gifts), [Writcraft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writcraft/gifts).



> who always respond to my texts with the appropriate number of crying emojis xxx

 

 

For all that he loved a dramatic moment, even Harry had to admit that he was sat on his sofa watching a 15 second video of water dripping onto a fern.

Truly, it just couldn’t be that deep.

The massively unsteady boat cruise videos hadn’t been either, and he may or may not have screen-grabbed that one picture of Nick and Alexa covered in mud after their apparent ATV adventures, but that was irrelevant. This was instagram, not snapchat. No screenshot notifications, no rules.

There was a part of him desperately trying not to think about how a few years ago, he wouldn’t have even dreamed of caring about a screenshot notification.

That part succeeded, on the whole. What good ever came of dwelling?

(A few years ago, he wouldn’t have had to take a screenshot at all. Nick would have sent him the photo himself, unwilling to take the chance that Harry might miss seeing it.)

It wasn’t even that he wanted to be there, exactly.

For one thing, it would have been chaos. Nick’s New Years bash would have suddenly been a media circus, the karaoke night he’d seen everyone post about less of a _cheer on the legends that were Alexa and Pixie and cajole Fifi into getting up there despite her obvious terror and hope that Ducky was singing loud enough to drown out Nick missing all his notes_ event, and more of a crazed free-for-all requiring security to help Harry slip away to the sanctity of his room.

Mallorca and Hawaii had been fine, but they hadn’t been the trip that he was watching unfold on his screen.

It occurred to Harry that Nick and everyone were going to see his name on the list of people watching their stories. He entertained the possibility that Nick wouldn’t check, wouldn’t bother to scroll through what was undoubtedly a very long list.

Entertained, and discarded.

This was Nick, after all.

He wondered what Nick thought of him watching, whether it even occurred to him to think anything at all, whether there _was_ anything to think.

He could ask. Just pull up their conversation and send a quick message, ask how the trip was, say it was looking fun. Acknowledge it, to clear out this half-formed feeling of tension that Harry wasn’t particularly fond of, even if it only existed inside his head.

He didn’t.

He was self-aware enough to see the pattern. To see himself making the same little decisions, letting thoughts of Nick (and of Niall, and Liam, and Louis. Of Gemma. (Of Zayn.)) flit away without actually bringing himself to send anything. Aware enough to connect those choices with the distance he felt from all these people that he wanted to be closest to.

He tried not to dwell.

(What good ever came of dwelling?)

He didn’t even really want to be there, at the _@shangrilamauritius_ as everyone’s instagram kept reminding him. But there was something that rankled about knowing it would have been weird, if he had wanted to. Weird, to hang around with Alexa and Pix and George and Fifi and Emily. Weird to be around Nick when Nick was with his friends—friends that used to be Harry’s friends too, at one point the people he saw most often after the boys.

Used to be, but weren’t anymore.

None of the rest of the clique changed numbers half as frequently as he did. Harry still had them all saved, and he’d never fallen out with any of them. Drifted, sure, but they’d all probably be happy to hear from him if he wanted to get in touch.

(He could just pull up their conversation and send a quick message.)

(He didn’t.)

How could it be, that it would have been weird? He almost couldn’t reconcile it, the truth, that he would have felt like an interloper. With the group. With Nick. That it would have been weird, for Harry Styles to have gone on holidays with Nicholas Grimshaw. How the fuck had he got to the point where it would have been weird to go on holidays with Nick?

He’d had such plans, such fantasies about it, in the last couple years of the band. All the things they’d get to do once he wasn’t quite so bogged down, when he had more freedom with his schedule, when he wasn’t touring so often, when people didn’t care so much about who he was seen with. Early twenties and early thirties had always seemed so much easier than late teens and late twenties, in his mind. Which, _ta-da_. Here they were. 

And he didn’t want to be in Mauritius. There were palm trees and beaches aplenty in LA.

But he was taking screenshots.

He didn’t want to be in Mauritius, but it would have been weird, if he’d wanted to go.

Nick wasn’t texting him pictures of the beach or his drinks or his sunburns or the footprints he left in the sand or of him and Alexa laughing whilst speckled in mud.

(He could just pull up their—)

And how the fuck had it gotten to the point where it would have been weird for Harry Styles to go on holidays with Nick Grimshaw?

 

He tried not to dwell.

 

(What good ever came of dwelling?)

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> come cry with me on [tumblr](http://daretomarvel.tumblr.com/) ♡
> 
> reviews are ambrosia for the soul
> 
>  


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